Archive for the ‘democracy’ Category

Standing up to the Madness is an excellent read

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary TimesMy labmate Tim sent me an email on Wednesday (April 15th) saying that Amy Goodman “Democracy Now! fame, and my heroin” [sic] was speaking on campus at noon. The place was packed, and it’s the best way I could have imagined to snap back out of the Qualifying Exam bubble I’ve spent the last several months in, and re-engage with the world at large.

One of the excuses for the tour is the paperback release of Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy and David Goodman.

Now that I’m a tenured grad student, I can actually allow myself to read for pleasure – guilt free! So I went to the library that Thursday, and picked up the hardcover, which came out last year.

What I liked about this book is what sets it apart from other political books of today. Amy and David don’t just provide us with a laundry list of wrongdoing by the Bush administration, congress, various governmental agencies, as well as highlighting some of the ongoing local struggles. Though the book is chock-full of such details, they are all provided in the context of a particular vignette. What’s more – instead of simply stating the problems, or providing an outline of the authors’ opinions regarding what course of action should be taken, the book highlights the work average citizens have already done to oppose injustice, censorship, racism, etc. One example is T-shirt “terrorist” Raed Jarrar, who wore a shirt with the words “We will not be silent” – written in both English and Arabic – a reference to the White Rose – and was forced to put another shirt over it because JetBlue customers were threatened or offended. With the help of the ACLU, Jarrar sued the TSA and JetBlue, who ended up paying $240,000 to settle the discrimination charges.

Like Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost1, this book is non-fiction that reads like fiction. Not because it is well-written, though it is, but because of the shocking realities of the content. Leadership cannot be taught, it can only be revealed. Standing up to the Madness gives us dozens of snapshots of the ongoing work of ordinary heroes.

  1. which, after I first read it in 2001 became my measuring stick for gauging the quality of non-fiction↩

Posted in Adam Hochschild, People, amy goodman, berkeley, books, david goodman, democracy, political discourse, review | No Comments »

Duopoly (or why I’m not voting for Obama)

Friday, July 4th, 2008

Let me ask you a question: Do you think that the two-party system is good for the United States?

I find it very difficult to engage in debates about national politics because the average citizen has so little influence over these matters. I think that it’s much more worthwhile to get informed about and involved in local politics, because that’s where someone like me can actually have influence.

Nevertheless my own answer to the question is that it’s probably not a good thing. There’s this high-dimensional landscape of issues that people care and have different ideas about – reproductive rights, gun control, immigration, education, social programs, the size of government, taxation, the list goes on and on. Yet that gets projected down to this one dimensional line with just “Left” and “Right” with optional “far” and “center” prefixes.

And, sadly, the common consensus is that on election day you have only two possible boxes to check. A single decision. One bit. 0 or 1.

The Democrats and Republicans are playing a small concessions type of game. They sort of shuffle around slightly to appeal to enough of those voters who aren’t already automatically voting for them. If you only vote for one or the other, they have no reason to change – they already have your vote.

Voters in safe rarely contested states, have the unique opportunity to vote their conscience without fear1. When I twittered about Obama’s support for the FISA Compromise, Philip, a disappointed California voter replied: “our voting system forces us to vote strategically and i’ll be voting obama .” This doesn’t make any sense to me! Obama will carry California. Democrats almost automatically get California2 .

So why give in? You’re not happy with the Democratic candidate3, the candidate who will carry California regardless of how you vote, yet you still feel unable to voice your disapproval in the electoral arena. David wrote: “I’m not going to throw away my vote on the green party,” but aren’t you just throwing away your vote to the democrats, instead?

The role of third parties is to emphasize new and different ideas, to bring folks who’ve given up hope back to the table, and to make the major parties shift in MEANINGFUL ways. Here are some great YouTube clips on the role of third parties in the US: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

If you still have doubts about voting for a third party candidate and/or you live in a swing state – consider the votepact.org proposal: find a fellow kindred heart on the other side of the political spectrum who’s also unhappy with the candidate on their side, and together vote for a third party (fill out your absentees together over coffee).

  1. Electoral College: bug or feature?↩
  2. The only way the Democrats might not get California is if Arnold runs as VP for a moderate Republican, and that just is not happening this year.↩
  3. There are more reasons to not be happy↩

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Posted in choice voting, democracy, greens, political discourse, third parties | 1 Comment »

uncomfortably sincere

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

From my paper journal:
Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes

23:37 May 10th, 2007 Thursday

So what good is all of this if we don’t engage one another – on a very real level? “Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes,” man – so let’s get off the condescending trips and the polarizing anti-discourse. Let’s use our full range – zero, one, two, five, seven, eight, ten, etc and not just on or off – there’s an infinitude of wonder in between and out in every dimension.

I resolve to hesitantly dip my toes in, from time to time, instead of being all in or all out. Talk to a beat stranger – but not every beat stranger. Give up some left over food to the guys on Bancroft and Telegraph (the Shattuck hobos are too hip for me – but I hope they aren’t for someone else — I know they aren’t). I can just eavesdrop on the world from time to time – I can’t always be wide-eyed gulping from the fire hydrant of information flowing at 100 terabits per second eyes glazed over passed out exhausted gasping for a sense of self disoriented head-spun hours or days later. Just a drinking fountain or a tap and a few cups or liters a day would be fine. No need to parch yourself and dry up like a raisin all the time. It’s ok to wrinkle and shrivel – and you don’t need to burst, either – just be uncomfortably sincere.

I think I’m going to try that.

Related brief thought:

17:36 June 22nd, 2007 Friday

Bumper Sticker Activists (Telegraph in Berkeley)
The last thing we need is more Bumper Sticker Activism. Wearing a clever T-shirt does not constitute civic participation.

Posted in berkeley, bumper sticker activism, democracy, journal excerpt, political discourse | No Comments »

visualizing world statistics (Gapminder – Hans Rosling)

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Graph: CO2 emissions per capita versus Time
CO2 vs Time - Gapminder
Above: a plot I made using Gapminder. When I first tried this tool a few months ago, I was left confused and unimpressed. Luckily, since then, I’ve stumbled upon the following two explanatory videos (~20 min each).

last year and this year.

After watching the videos, you can play with Gapminder yourself as it is a web-based tool.

More info and tool links at gapminder.org.

Posted in democracy, ex-lj, gapminder, google, hans rosling, statistics, trendalyzer, visualization | No Comments »

Todd Chretien, Greens, Choice Voting

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Sentence long update on life: I’m at Berkeley studying Vision Science now.

I’ve started getting involved with the (currently small) Campus Greens organization (which meets Mondays at 7:10 in 200 Wheeler).

So today I heard Todd Chretien, Green senatorial candidate speak to a group of about 30 as part of the ASUC Speaker Series. Todd titled his talk “Why Students Should Never, Ever Vote for the Democrats,” which I think is somewhat unfortunate. Todd has an eloquent platform and I share a lot of the same views, but I also think that the title incites the type of reaction that eliminates any possibility for reasonable discussion or discourse.

I think that people don’t want to listen to you if you insult them, or just say something shocking – the novelty (if any) quickly wears off (it’s taken me a while to figure this out, but I think I learned the difficulty in trying to actively engage those who support the Democrats when talking (ranting?) to Janet on the streets of Brussels over the summer).

I think that we need more boring nitty-gritty politics, because no one will hand over the helm to people with big ideas (even if they are the right ideas). The big picture is important, but it has to be negotiated with real, tangible, local progress.

Todd gave a short run through of his top three issues ( war in Iraq, education, the two party system), and then opened it up for Q & A. In answering the questions, he covered a lot of ground in both domestic and foreign policy, but I felt like it was a discussion of issues larger than those someone who admitted he had no chance of winning could hope to influence….

So as the last question for the night, after expressing these sentiments I asked what we could do locally, that’s within our power, mentioning current choice voting efforts in Davis and Oakland. Unfortunately, Todd stuck to his anti-war protest-in-the-streets approach (even taking an outlandish pot shot at proportional representation by mentioning something about Hitler getting elected).

Most of my life I, too, have been a big ideas person, but I can’t say I’ve accomplished much with them, which is why I’m trying something new…

By the way, Kenji and Philip, you continued work on important matters has been really inspiring.Here’s my letter to the editor regarding choice voting that never got printed in the Davis Enterprise:

Until I came to UC Davis, I had never realized that there *could* be different voting systems. Choice voting is a way of reaching a majority (greater than 50%) consensus.

Choice voting allows everyone to vote their conscience without the fear of having your vote “wasted.” After the polls close, if your top-ranked candidate, Alice, has the least amount of votes, she is eliminated and your vote transfers to your next choice, Bob, in your order of preference. This process (“instant run-off”) continues until candidates reach enough votes to be elected (the threshold). This consensus building mechanism ensures that the elected officials will represent the greatest possible proportion of the voters.

Contrast this with the current system: candidate Mallory and Minnie, representing a minority of the population could get elected when multiple similar candidates (Alice, Bob, Chris, and Debra) representing the viewpoints of the majority of the population split the vote between one other.

This would not happen under choice voting, because when Alice is eliminated, those votes would go to the next choices of her supporters. This would provide more votes for the remaining majority candidates, ensuring that one of them gets elected.

I encourage Davis voters to vote yes on Measure L this November so that the City can continue looking into this effective system.

Paul Ivanov
UC Davis Class of 2005

(cute choice voting promotional video)

Posted in choice voting, democracy, ex-lj, greens, todd chretien | No Comments »